The Haitian immigrants are among those staying at the Alberg Asavil Shelter in Tijuana. Many Haitians who fled gang violence in their homelands have lived in shelters and are in the frontiers since the crackdown on American immigrants.
Tijuana – When the Russians arrived at the US-Mexican border on March 1st, he knew it was too late. Still, he hoped that even if President Trump was in office he could enter the United States to seek asylum.
Slavik, a 37-year-old engineer, said he fled Russia after being beaten by security forces to support opposing political parties. He said he wanted to meet our immigration officer to apply for asylum, and he has friends who are willing to sponsor him.
Alicia Ayala has won the Agape for All Nations Ministries International and shaved the 37-year-old head of Russian immigrant Slavik in the Albergue Assabil Shelter in Tijuana.
Instead, he spent several weeks at a shelter for immigrants in Tijuana, pondering what to do next.
“I tried to do it by the rules,” said Slavik, who asked for it to be identified by his nickname, fearing retaliation. “There’s nothing else now. All immigrants will become illegal.”
In Tijuana, thousands of immigrants, including Slavik, have tried to secure appointments with immigration officers through Biden-controlled telephone applications, but Trump cancelled the program and effectively blocked access to asylum. Many people then left the area.
With no legal way to enter the US, the mood among immigrants still in Tijuana has shifted from cautious optimism to despair. The shelters are no longer full. The director says that those remaining are one of the most vulnerable.
Worse, the Trump administration’s cuts to the US International Development Agency, or USAID, have brought several shelters on the brink of shutdown, strengthening the budgets of others and significantly reducing immigrant health services. Permanent organizations are currently struggling to fill the gap.
“As lawyers, we want to provide solutions for people, but now there’s nothing,” said Lindsay Tozzi Lawski, co-founder and CEO of the Los Angeles-based Immigration Defenderslow Center. She visits the Tijuana Shelter several times a month. “They ask a lot of questions and we say, ‘Sorry.’ ”
Haitian immigrants will remain at the Alberg Asavil Shelter in Tijuana. The centre serves not only primarily Muslim immigrants but also people all over the world.
The intersection of illegal boundaries becomes trickle, but Toczylowski and other supporters believe it will eventually start to increase.
Slavik fled his hometown in 2022 and, after first living in Turkey and Georgia, he realized that these countries were not safe as Russian ally.
He cannot return to Russia. There, he is considered a terrorist sponsor to donate to the campaign of Alexei Navalny, the biggest political rival of President Vladimir Putin, who passed away under suspicious circumstances last year.
But staying elsewhere in Mexico or Latin America would be difficult, Slavik said, as he cannot speak Spanish. He spoke basic English and considered going to Canada, but a friend said it would be difficult for him to get asylum there either.
Now Slavik is beginning to feel that he has no choice but to enter the United States illegally.
“This is probably one chance,” he said. “If a lot of people do that, maybe I can do that.”
Slavik stayed at Albergue Assabil, a shelter serving mostly Muslim immigrants. Coach Angie Magagna said half of the 130 people living there had been left before the fall US presidential election. Many returned to their home countries, including Russia, Haiti, the Congo, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Others went to Panama, she said.
The shelter was bustling these days on a Friday. Haircuts were offered in the courtyard. The truck was pulled out and residents helped carry it in cases of donated bottled water. Within the community centre, members of a humanitarian organization arrived to play games with the kids, so people drinking breakfast and tea cleared the table.
Angie Magagna, director of the Alberg Asavil Shelter in Tijuana, is waiting for the delivery of donated items.
Maganya said, “Most people have hopes that something will happen. I’m telling them the best thing to do is to have asylum here.”
Toczylowski said the administration is very different from Trump’s first term when it is possible to seek humanitarian entry, especially for a desperate incident, such as women fleeing dangerous relationships. Now, every time a woman says that the abuser has found her, she asks Tozzilovsky what she can do.
A few weeks after the elimination of the phone app for border reservations, Tozzilovsky brought vulnerable families, including children with disabilities, to San Isidro’s port of entry.
She said Border Patrol agents had driven them away, saying there was no process to seek asylum from them.
The US military added a layer of concert wire to a six-mile border fence near San Isidro.
“Ideally, they’ll stop them from crossing,” he said illegally. “We want them to enter the port of entry, where it is safer.
He did not address the fact that the government essentially halted consideration of asylum requests at ports of entry. Toczylowski said in her experience that limited exceptions were made for unaccompanied children.
The immigrant Haitians stay at the Alberg Asavil Shelter in Tijuana. Many Haitians who fled gang violence in Haiti have lived in this Muslim shelter and are falling into the frontier since the crackdown on American immigrants.
The suspension of the USAID Fund is also changing lives at borders. On his first day in office on January 20th, Trump signed an executive order to freeze 90 days of US foreign aid payments, waiting for a review of efficiency and alignment with foreign policy. The order states that foreign aid is “not in line with American interests and is often in conflict with American values.”
An April 3 report by the Institute for Non-Participation Immigration Policy found up to $2.3 billion in immigration-related grants would appear on leaked lists shared with USAID and Congress of fired foreign aid from the State Department. Of the funds that provided humanitarian assistance, countering human trafficking and enabling refugees to settle refugees, it was $200 million, focusing on blocking migration from Central America.
The fallout from the cut has already begun, the report says. For example, the Ecuadorian government has justified using the withdrawal of foreign aid to revoke the pardon of immigrants in Venezuela.
In Tijuana, Trump’s order closed a health and social services clinic called Comnidad Abes. The long-standing shelter, known as Casa Del Migrante, is on the brink of closure after a USAID-funded organization cut back on support and left its leaders in a desperate search for exchange funds.
Midwife Ximena Rojas and two Doulas teams run a birth center and provide sexual and reproductive care to immigrants.
Midwife Zanic Zamudio, left, Zaimena Rojas sits with Rojas children next to the birth bathtub used at Rojas’ home in Tijuana. Since the shutdown of health services for immigrants, midwives have been overwhelmed by the demand for services such as prenatal care, family planning and pregnancy tests.
Rojas sees 20 patients a day, three days a week. Her service is extremely important. Many of the women she saw did not have a Pap smear, so some were sexually assaulted on the travel route.
The closure of Abes and concerns about Casadel immigrants, who are partnering with the Tijuana government for weekly doctor visits, have put pressure on her small operation to expand its scope.
“We have Max’s abilities,” she said. “We need an army.”
Rojas said immigrants are considering opening food banks to compensate for the loss of US government assistance.
“Our goal is to reduce infant deaths, to reduce mother deaths. The best way to do that is through nutrition,” Rojas said. “I give them prenatal vitamins every day, but if they’re eating [only] Bananas for a day, it’s like vitamins can only do that much. ”
Many shelters relied on funding from the International Organization for Food Migration. At Espacio Migrante, money paid for imported materials that allow families in countries such as Russia and Uzbekistan to cook religiously or culturally appropriate meals.
At Rashita de Union Trans, a shelter for trans women, the facility’s monthly 6,000 pesos (about $300) was directed towards eggs, cooking oil and milk, including basic essentials.
Susy Barrales is the director of La Casita de Union Trans, a shelter for transgender women at Tijuana. The shelter currently has five transgender immigrants.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
But coach Susie Barales said US politics won’t stop trans women from seeking safety or trying to support shelters.
“I want girls to study and get a job, so they can stand up to whatever comes their way. “We’re going to keep trying.”
Residents at the shelter include 31-year-old hairstylist Miranda Torres, who fled Venezuela in July after being raped by a stranger, and police refused to investigate. She said the attack caused her to contract HIV. Venezuela’s continued economic collapse meant she was unable to receive medical treatment.
Torres said she walked north through Darien Gap. Darien Gap is a dangerous 60-mile jungle surrounding the border that divides Colombia and Panama, where he was again sexually assaulted.
Venezuelan immigrant Miranda Torres, 31, crys as she remembers the violence she endured during her trip from her hometown to Tijuana. She is staying at La Casita de Union Trance.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, she was diagnosed with lymph cancer and undergoes surgery and chemotherapy. She now has a round wound on her neck and covers her alded head with a wig.
After it took a while to recover, Torres finally arrives in Tijuana in December, where she sleeps on a cardboard box on the street, trying to enter the ever-repeated and increasingly dangerous US
Unable to secure an appointment through the phone app, she went to the entrance to San Isidro and waited outside for four days to talk to her agent. She was turned away and later detained by Mexican immigrant staff before being released for her health.
Torres said that men from the criminal group began targeting her and would hurt her if she hadn’t crossed the border. So she tried to climb the border fence, but she was too weak to lift herself up. They then told her to swim around a fence spreading across the Pacific Ocean. She almost died of drowning.
Torres has now given up on the US and is applying for asylum in Mexico.
“My dreams are in my mind, not in a particular country,” she said. She sat on one bunk bed in Lasita’s two bedrooms, and Chapel Lawn’s hit “Pink Pony Club” played from someone’s phone in the living room.
“If they are not possible in the US, I’ll make them happen here.”
Dessire López is back inside the La Casita de Union Trans in Tijuana. Lopez is a shelter health advocate.
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